"X is smug"

Odradek

No it isn't

Klinotaxis

So meta-level.

Sredni Vashtar

Pretty sure you've done this topic before in some form.

Tre

Not even Apple's assertion that removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 was an act of courage?

Odradek

So meta-level.

So insightful

Sredni Vashtar said:

Pretty sure you've done this topic before in some form.

Oops

Section42L

These kinds of statements are mostly projection, honestly.

Odradek

Tiny said:

Not even Apple's assertion that removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 was an act of courage?

That was smug because it was a person doing it, and not a work of art

Sredni Vashtar

Tiny said:

Not even Apple's assertion that removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 was an act of courage?

As Mayoi Hachikuji once put it, "The courage to betray your friends."

CarnEvil said:

Sredni Vashtar said:

Pretty sure you've done this topic before in some form.

Oops

Don't get me wrong, I agree, but it's giving me déjà-vu here...

^^ & ^ Again, exactly.

Section42L

Sredni Vashtar said:

Tiny said:

Not even Apple's assertion that removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 was an act of courage?

As Mayoi Hachikuji once put it, "The courage to betray your friends."

As much as I like to defend Steve Jobs, that quote honestly could've gone on his gravestone.

Anonus

Of course he'd double-cross his friends, his enemies didn't trust him

Sredni Vashtar

Which raises the question as to whose gravestone on which one would put: "The courage to be a lazy bum."

Klinotaxis

I'm just saying this is... you saw a few smugness complaints, generalized, responded "no". There is no substance

Section42L

Sredni Vashtar said:

Which raises the question as to whose gravestone on which one would put: "The courage to be a lazy bum."

Emperor Norton's, of course.

Klinotaxis

How could be have protected Mexico if he was lazy? The court will not forget this insult

Sredni Vashtar

He was, unlike a certain modern businessman of similar ambitions, actually quite productive and successful for most of his life, and then lost everything. So I would say that it was true in the end in a completely unironic sense.

Odradek

I'm just saying this is... you saw a few smugness complaints, generalized, responded "no". There is no substance

As subject, but also as substance

Bee

I'm pretty sure "smug" is a perfectly valid descriptor for the works of quite a few authors -- mainly those whose smug is fucking contagious and probably leaves, I dunno, spores or something.  Ayn Rand comes to mind.

Sredni Vashtar

There are valid uses of the term in reference to a strong authorial voice characterised by a particular tone, but more often than not, characterising a work itself as "smug" is extremely presumptuous and has an element of psychological projection going on that I do not care for at all.

I would also say that Rand herself always struck me as more self-righteous than smug, which I think is de rigueur for Russian philosophical novelists in the post-Dostoyevsky vein.

MetaFour

I'm not sure who's making this accusation, and it seems kind of baseless to me. But even if it were true, I think if you get Ray Manzarek to produce and play on your album, you're allowed to be at least a little smug.